Genome-wide association study of agronomy and morphology and morphology traits in elite spring wheat Germplasm evaluated under salt stress conditions in Egypt

Shaimaa M. Ahmed, Kord A. Maimona, Hafez M. Rehab, Momtaz A. Osama, Amer N. Mohamed, Mobarak H. Mohamed, Alsamman M. Alsamman, Aladdin Hamwieh, Wuletaw Tadesse. (16/11/2021). Genome-wide association study of agronomy and morphology and morphology traits in elite spring wheat Germplasm evaluated under salt stress conditions in Egypt. Plant Cell Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, 22 (65-66), pp. 88-98.

Abstract

Soil salinity is a long-term issue that needs addressing by developing tolerant cultivars. Today, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is a preferred tool for quantitative trail loci detection for different traits. Ten salinity-related attributes in a broad panel of bread wheat were evaluated in saline field (10 dSm-1 NaCl), at El-Arish, North Sinai, Egypt. We detected genomic loci associated with salt tolerance using over, 24145 single nucleotide polymorphism. One experiment was conducted in two seasons; under saline soil conditions of El-Arish, Sinai, where soil ECe was 8.68 and 9.31 dSm-1 in the first and second season, respectively. Ten trait-marker associations were detected on the 1D, 3A, and 6B chromosomes of bread wheat. For spikes/plant and tillers/plant, seven common SNPs (SNP- BobWhite_c8340_511, SNP- BobWhite_rep_c49102_169, SNPBS00068520_51, SNP- IAAV3900, SNP- Kukri_c34195_357, SNP- Kukri_c80104_809 and SNPwsnp_RFL_Contig429_4978628) were identified on chromosome 3A. For plant height, SNPExcalibur_c91980_139 was identified on chromosome 6B in the two seasons and for spike length, SNP- D_GA8KES401EYUM8_190 was identified on chromsome 1D. SNP BobWhite_rep_c49102_169 was previously reported to be linked to germination under salt stress. BS00068520_51 was found to be associated to thousand kernel weight while the SNPs Kukri_c34195_357 and Kukri_c80104_809 were associated with flour colour related traits, under non saline conditions. These SNPs were associated with spikes and tillers/plant in the present study. The other six SNPs are novel to be found to salinity tolerance related traits.